Chapter Text
Ignored by the hurrying throngs of people, a scrawny, dark-haired boy stood before the glass case housing the largest exhibit and stared inside. If any had stopped to notice the boy, they would have thought his unblinking gaze more suited to the snake inside—but the reptile was asleep, head resting on its coiled body, apparently unmoved by the carrying voices and occasional taps on the glass from the zoo’s visitors.
Sherlock could definitely relate. Casting a quick glance behind him, he wondered what the rush was, why people scurried through a trip undertaken for pleasure.
Sherlock had never been to a zoo before, and didn’t expect to be again. That was for people like Mycroft, who had pocket money and friends and, above all, a family who actually cared. So in spite of the heat and stifling crowds, he was doing his best to enjoy it now.
Uncle Vernon was a gorilla, he had decided—loud and brash and prone to displays of aggression unless he got his way. Aunt Petunia was as graceless and bony as a giraffe, but carried herself through her unbearably dull life with all the self-satisfaction of one of the peacocks strutting between picnic tables with the pigeons. Mycroft was a panther, secretive and aloof. On certain occasions twining into your path like a housecat wanting attention. And always, always dangerous.
I am a snake, Sherlock decided, tracing the inert, curled body in front of him. Evidently the serpent agreed, because all at once its lids snapped open and the strange, slitted eyes fixed on his. Sherlock caught his breath and returned the stare, ignoring his own wide green-eyed reflection in the glass. For a moment the noises behind him grew quiet, the details at the corners of his vision blurred, and there was only his staring match with the snake. As was usual on the rare occasions Sherlock found his attention completely and utterly caught up in something, the crystal-clear focus was so sharp a relief he could cry.
Except Sherlock Potter didn’t cry. Not from what his cousin labelled ‘petty grievances’, not from unfamiliar relief, and certainly not from the illogical, heart-pounding exhilaration flooding through him now.
He raised a thin hand to the glass, resting on its smooth surface, imagining that he could step through the glass to stroke the metallic scales and peer back more closely into the slitted pupils boring into his.
“Hello,” he murmured.
The snake arched its neck slowly upward until its head hung at his eye level. It stayed that way for a long moment, swaying back and forward, and then opened its fanged mouth. The tongue flickered in and out, but what emerged was not a hiss.
“Hello, small human,” it said.
Sherlock blinked once, hard. He knew what Mycroft would say, what his teachers would say—this was clearly impossible. Completely unbelievable. Well, it was the latest in a series of things that should have been impossible but weren’t. Therefore it was logical to assume that some of the prevailing scientific theories were wrong, and proceed by gathering all the data possible.
“I didn’t know snakes could speak,” he said as casually as though his heart weren’t threatening to break out of his ribcage.
“All creatures can sspeak,” the boa constrictor replied, and this time Sherlock made out the hissing undertone. “Excccept those that are incredibly dull.” It flicked its head lightly to the side to indicate the rushing crowd, one or two of whom were beginning to take notice of the reptile’s strange behaviour.
Sherlock grinned. “Most people, then.”
The dip of the snake’s head affirmed this. “Mosst people here.”
“Where would you go, if you were free?”
The tail jabbed toward the glass, indicating a sign in the lower corner.
“Native to Brazil. Bred in captivity,” Sherlock read aloud. He grimaced in sympathy. “That’s me, too.”
There was no time to register the snake’s hissed warning before another voice sounded above Sherlock’s head. Piercing, as always, in its mild eloquence.
“Fraternising with the captives, Sherlock? How very self-aware of you. What's this?”
Sherlock clenched his jaw. It wasn’t like him to fail to notice Mycroft’s approach, but nor was it every day that he found himself in conversation with a reptile. He could hardly be blamed for getting carried away in sheer delight at the unbelievable. Sherlock turned to his cousin with a carefully schooled expression of boredom.
“It’s a boa constrictor, Mycroft. I was led to assume that your early graduation to secondary school was an indication that you could read, but apparently I was wrong.”
“And you’ve been having a lovely little chat with it.”
Sherlock bit down his anger. It wouldn’t do to let his cousin know how close he had come to the mark. Though who knew how long he had been standing there?
“It seemed the only opportunity for intelligent conversation that would arise for a while.” He turned back to the glass. The snake was resting its head again, but wasn’t asleep. It seemed to be regarding him with almost an air of amusement.
“What?” Sherlock hissed.
“Do uss both a favour, sssmall human.”
“What do you mean?”
The tail tapped the glass again.
Sherlock brought his hand up to the smooth surface. What the snake was suggesting was utterly ridiculous. Just like the time his teacher’s wig turned blue, and the spontaneous combustion of Aunt Petunia’s rhododendrons. But it was ridiculous to assume that he could actually…
His hand was touching empty air. The glass had vanished.
Sherlock would treasure the look on his cousin’s face for the rest of his life.
Mycroft, usually calm, collected, and more pompous than any thirteen-year-old had a right to be, had seen the glass vanish and stumbled backward in panic. The snake was moving within seconds—Sherlock felt a thrill that ought to have been fear race up his spine as the huge serpent slithered toward him, past him…he could swear he heard a quiet “Thankss, amigo,” as it went by…and then, with a playful nip at Mycroft’s ankles, it was gone. In blind panic, Mycroft seized an umbrella from a passerby and brandished it, but the boa constrictor was already vanishing into the crowd.
Sherlock pressed his back against a wall and smiled as the first screams rent the air.